| Giles Farnaby's Dream Band | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio album by Giles Farnaby's Dream Band | |
| Released | 1973 |
| Genre | British folk rock - Medieval folk rock |
| Label | Argo (ZDA158) |
| Producer | Kevin Daly |
Giles Farnaby's Dream Band was a collaboration between the early music ensemble St. George’s Canzona, Derby-based folk group The Druids, and Trevor Crozier’s 'Broken Consort'. They were backed by three jazz musicians: Jeff Clyne (bass guitar), Dave MacRae (electric piano) and Trevor Tomkins (drums).
Jeffrey Ovid Clyne was a British jazz bassist.
Dave MacRae is a keyboardist from New Zealand, noted for his contributions in jazz and his collaborations with people from the Canterbury scene.
Contents
The album title is a pun on the piece ‘Giles Farnabys Dreame’ by the renaissance composer Giles Farnaby.
Giles Farnaby was an English composer and virginalist of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The album largely consists of renaissance dance tunes played on a combination of early and modern instruments. This prefigures some of the work later undertaken by the Albion Band and Home Service. It is chiefly notable for its experimental nature, demonstrating some of the diverse attempts at fusion at the time which resulted in subgenres such as folk jazz and medieval folk rock. It is most similar in its sound to medieval folk and progressive rock bands like Gryphon and Gentle Giant. [1] The rarity of the album has made it the subject of enthusiasm for some collectors.
Home Service is a British folk rock group, formed in late 1980 from a nucleus of musicians who had been playing in Ashley Hutchings' Albion Band. Their career is generally agreed to have peaked with the album Alright Jack, and has had an influence on later work. John Tams and several other members of the band, have had solo careers and worked in other projects. In 2016 John Kirkpatrick replaced Tams as main singer in Home Service, and will feature as such on their next album.
Folk jazz is music that pairs traditional folk music with elements of jazz, usually featuring richly texturized songs. The origins of folk jazz can be traced back to the fifties, when artists like Jimmy Giuffre and Tony Scott pursued distinct approaches to folk music production, initially, as a vehicle for soloist expression.
Medieval folk rock, medieval rock or medieval folk is a musical subgenre that emerged in the early 1970s in England and Germany which combined elements of early music with rock music. It grew out of the British folk rock and progressive folk movements of the later 1960s. Despite the name, the term was used indiscriminately to categorise performers who incorporated elements of medieval, renaissance and baroque music into their work and sometimes to describe groups who used few, or no, electric instruments. This subgenre reached its height towards the middle of the 1970s when it achieved some mainstream success in Britain, but within a few years most groups had either disbanded, or were absorbed into the wider movements of progressive folk and progressive rock. Nevertheless, the genre had a considerable impact within progressive rock where early music, and medievalism in general, was a major influence and through that in the development of heavy metal. More recently medieval folk rock has revived in popularity along with other forms of medieval inspired music such as Dark Wave orientated neo-Medieval music and medieval metal.
The song ‘Newcastle Brown’ was subsequently released as a single (Argo, AFW112, 1973).
The album was reissued as a CD in 2004 (Walhalla, WH90324, 2004)
